The City of Cologne, engraved by M.J. Starling after Leitch 1850

Editor: This is "The City of Cologne, engraved by M.J. Starling after Leitch" from 1850. It’s fascinating to see how they captured the city's skyline. What's interesting to me is the layering, the very human and earthly laboring scene in the front, against the looming architecture in the background. How would you interpret this work? Curator: I see it as a document of production. Starling's engraving process itself is labor-intensive, requiring skilled hands and specific tools to transfer Leitch's vision onto a reproducible surface. Consider also the workers depicted—their activities, however romanticized, point to Cologne’s economic and social fabric at the time. The very materiality of the print, the paper, the ink, speak to a culture of dissemination and consumption of images. What does it mean that the original work in a painting versus it being consumed en masse in print? Editor: So, you're saying that the engraving itself becomes part of the story, that the choice of materials adds meaning? I hadn't considered the print medium like that. It makes me think of how widely accessible this view of Cologne would have been. Curator: Exactly. And accessible at what cost? We must acknowledge that images such as this one can serve a market imperative for Romantic picturesque scenes; images sold to support British leisure and tourism on the continent. In these cases, the laborers represented in the pictures contribute nothing. Were their working conditions aligned to allow them the freedom to view the cathedral depicted? Or was it a dream only afforded to the wealthy British? Editor: I never would have thought about the role of tourism here! It completely shifts my perspective on the image. Thanks. Curator: The key is to examine both the explicit imagery and the implicit socioeconomic contexts within which that imagery was created and consumed.